Soil

Deepen your knowledge of soils from USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS.)

This overview of soils for educators includes information about the role of soils, the properties of soil, and soil horizons.

With photographs, diagrams, and a helpful glossary, this introduction to soils describes their unique characteristics and diversity, the ecosystem services that soils provide, and their use and misuse.

All resources from PBS Learning Media contain teacher support materials including videos, background reading, discussion questions, teaching tips, hands-on activities, student handouts, and more. Several of these have fully developed lessons plans and investigations that can be easily adapted for different grade levels. You’ll want to check these out!

• The Dirt on Dirt: Sid the Science Guy (8 part series) — grades K-1
• Sand and Soil: Curious George — grades K-1
• Sorting Out Soils — grades K-1
• Soil Investigation: Cyberchase — grades K-3
• What is Soil? (NASA) — grades 1-3
• I Dig Soil! (Expository Reading Lesson) — grade 3
• Soil Composition: Think Garden — grades 3-6
• Why Soil Matters — grades 4-8
• The Ingredients For Soil (NOVA) — grades 6-8
• The Living Soil Beneath Our Feet (Habitat Earth) -- grades 6-8
• Healthy Soil Systems — grades 7-9

The Nature Conservancy’s Nature Lab, in connection with PBS Learning Media, has created a series of complete soil lesson plans, including hands-on activities, for grades 4-8.

• How Dirt Works video lesson
• How Dirt Works lesson plan
• Soil: Garden Activity Guide lesson plan
• Soil Analysis Educator Support

Soil4Teachers is a terrific resource for all science educators, full of lessons and activities for soil studies at all grade levels. Soils4Kids is a companion site for students, with many features you can use in the classroom.

National Geographic’s Resource Library for Educators features articles and activities for classroom use. Do We Treat Our Soil Like Dirt? has text leveled for grades 3-12. Students in grades 4-6 can learn more about Soil Composition, Humus, Underground Burrows, and Weathering.

Then check out interesting scientist profiles at the Soil Science Society of America or soil explorers from the Smithsonian Institute.

The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center has a soil site that includes a “root words” worksheet, a state soil interactive, and a section on professional soil explorers. A terrific interactive for students called The Big Picture explores the effects of soil on distant ecosystems around the world.

Question-and-answer feature with S.K. Worm.

Earth’s Solid Membrane:Soil from Annenberg Learner is specifically designed for K-8 teachers to assist you in teaching children about soils.

Visit Let’s Talk Science or Easy Science for Kids for facts and videos about Healthy Soil and Soil Basics.

These soil worksheets for classroom use include soil types, formation, uses, and more.

Targeted videos can be useful in your classroom study of soil. You may want to take a look at the following:

• SciShow Kids offers a collection of soil videos including Where Does Soil Come From, Soil is Alive, and Experiment with Soil.
• All About Soil presents soil composition, types, properties, and uses in an easy-to-understand format.
• The Apple As Planet Earth demonstrates how little of Earth’s surface is composed of usable soil and why it is so important to conserve healthy soil.
• WatchKnowLearn has compiled numerous soil videos for various grade levels

Agriculture in the Classroom has a collection of fully developed soil lesson plans that are ready for you to use with students. All lessons include hands-on investigations, student handouts, and companion resources. Here are a few you may like to try:

• How Much Is Dirt Worth? — for Grades 3-5 and Grades 6-8
• Properties of Soils — for Grades 3-5 and Grades 6-8
• The Soil Chain
• What’s In Soil?
• Soil Formation and Edible Horizons
• What Makes Up Your Profile?
• Soil Texture and Water Percolation

Dirt: Secrets in the Soil is a complete teaching unit using the above Agriculture in the Classroom lesson plans, powerpoints, videos and investigations. (pdf version)

Take a look at The Dirt on Soil, A Recipe For Soil, Soil Ingredients, S-O-I-L Soil, and What’s in the Dirt?

Soil! Get The Inside Scoop is a series of lessons plans for grades 4-6 developed by the Soil Science Society of America. Each lesson contains a powerpoint presentation, activities, links, and study questions.

The National Science Teaching Association has compiled soil lessons and investigations for all grade levels.

It can be eye-opening for students to study soils around the world. Help them discover more about soil diversity with these lesson about forest soils and prairie soils.

Take a look at this collection of soil lesson plans from Baylor University: Observing Soils (1st grade,) Formation of Soil (3rd grade,) and Physical Properties of Soil (4th grade.)

Your students will enjoy these 14 hands-on projects and soil experiments from Soil4Kids.

Celebrate soils in your classroom with these six hands-on investigations developed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in connection with World Soil Day.

These five simple experiments from How Stuff Works will help kids discover soil properties through active participation.

Younger students observe the composition of soil and describe their findings in Dirt Detectives from PBS Kids or The Dirt on Soil from Kids Discover.

Erosion and Soil is a great classroom demonstration of the power of water on soil that encourages children to think like scientists and make hypotheses based on observation.